I have a confession to make.

I have a Tumblr......but I'm not going to make it public yet; because I don't really know how I feel about it. Too many widgets for me. The existence of an actual Theme Garden, a Tumblr for iPhone app, and the other 12309809817 things on my tumblr dashboard I haven't quite figured out yet kind of boggle my mind. I think I might be boring and old school and stick with you, Blogger. If you started trying to take less than ten minutes to upload one photograph I might like you better.

All right; so down to business.

The last few days have been puh-retty damn dismal! And I KNOW this is the Generation Of The Hyperbole; but this is one of the rare instances I'm not exaggerating without reason to italicize.

...I know this is about the billionth time I've been going off in my whiny little tangent about A Levels. It's not going to last for long. Just one week till it begins, and then four weeks or so till it ends; and if I haven't offed myself by then things will start to look up. It's just that this period DOES suck. I do fully understand the relevance of having an international benchmark by which pretty much my entire future is going to be dictated; but it just seems a shame to waste Being 18 on...oh, I don't know. Promising yourself you'll do 6 hours of studying and then only doing 5.14444 and then finding out your friend did 8 and then feeling thoroughly crap about yourself because when you are a Singaporean A Leveller, your self worth is directly proportionate to the number of SAJC H2 Economics Case Studies you complete in a day. Just sayin'.

[/end whiny little tangent about A Levels]

On a side note, I think all my friends are going crazy. :<>

The other day, the bunch of us were having an enthused discussion about The Cons Of Being An Early Bloomer. You ace your PSLE, your parents think you're the next Nobel Prize Winner, jet you off to a school for the "creme de la creme" (creme WHAT creme? the only creme i've been seeing is cram...ming. for exams. :( ), heaps of expectations etc etc etc...and then you hit- what- 17, 18? ...and then everything starts going downhill from there and then one day it hits you: "...damn. I'm not actually all that intelligent."

...okay, so it isn't really all that bad and we STILL purportedly are the creme de la creme and we're not all that stupid really- i mean- i evern noe big 4 sillible wurds lyk "intelligent".

so it can't be that bad really, can it, God?

[/end whiny little tangent about Education matters in general]

Today was pretty nice, though. Had weird tensiony moments; but I had the best full body massage in a long time and had some odd but rad moments with Erik (note: two events not in any way related) and my friend's an addict and another one's being really weird and Erik and I chatted in myriad corny accents, v loudly, all the way home. The Singapore Public was not amused.

so I missed Halloween but that's okay, I was kinduf living my own little nightmare anyway

thing is, though, i just realized: i'm not really all that much into Halloween.

I know Di (moonsister!) likes it; she loves it; she was raving about her new skull bandana, bless her heart, and offered to lend it to me. I don't know I think I might look a little too "Che Guavera-meets-The-Black-Pearl-meets-Graveyard-Chic" and that combination might be a little too much for my fragile constitution to handle now....

i prefer christmas.

all the fake gore and tacky makeup and really bad colour combinations kind of put me off halloween. Maybe that's because I've only been celebrating it the six-year-old way; but I don't think the six-year-old and eighteen-year-old way differ by a lot.

also- admittedly Christmas DOES also involve really bad colour combinations but it is sanctioned by God and Santa.

and therefore infinitely holier.

amen.

i need sleep and lessons in punctuation and capitalization

My whole day thus far has been a very bad mash-up of Wall Street and the Starter Wife.

Why do my parents pick the WORST possible times to teach me how to do things? I do appreciate that stock marketing as well as learning how to run the gamut of household chores are essential life skills that every independent young woman should have; but really, couldn't this have been timed a little better? Say it with me: SEVENTEEN DAYS TO A LEVELS

It's 4:41PM now and I'm only just starting work. My Singapore compatriots have probably been awake since 2AM studying. Thanks, Mum. Thanks, Dad.

Hey- if I end up failing my A Levels; at least with my newfound knowhow I could make a living helping people turn on their dryers!

The world is generally pissing me off today.

I'm going to turn in early tonight; and maybe when I wake up I will be a little less judgmental, and people a little less stupid.

I will go into the enchanted garden.

I will peer behind leaves and lift the soft petals of flowers to find the faeries that used to hide there; should still be there; never left. Like a little sister I will tiptoe across wet grass with damp baby-blue toes; rise gently on high arches; be molded by the magick air into a still sculpture of some forgotten nymphian frame.

here we never grow old. Here the boys are beautiful and the girls have eyes like wild fawns, unafraid. We move through shrubbery and we mark our foreheads with the sign of the Hunt. Here we sing the ancient songs and they do not stick in our mortal throats like knots.

elsewhere there is a white boat and my other mother lies in it

waiting

guinevere neverwoken. the weeds cradle the oars, nestle between eyelashes.

the father? midas. he breathes, eyes wide open, at the bottom of the river. mouth parted in a silent 'o'

Am I innocent? i am. i paid the price back in the other world and they rigged the scales with the same stones they hurled at me in the square. From the arches of the cathedral I saw a ghostly Joan of Arc nodding at me. "you had nothing to die for and i am sorry for it." the red seeping through the front of her tunic. all too real for a phantom. from the ground a rough man in patchwork put a hand to his forehead and complained of strange rain.

"soon you will join me in the enchanted forest, sister"

where the butterflies move with a heavy lethargy; slink across the air with a silky friction. the trees breathe a weighty daze upon your thoughts; but from where you sink slowly pressed into the ground your nightgown still flutters like white tissue. the purest thing here,

lightest.

the damp dirt sucks at your fingers; pulls down your toes...the wet roots clamp around your ankles and the earth moans in its belly. a slow and heavy seduction. you would fight, but this is almost pleasurable. one with the moist peat. well, they wanted peace on earth. the moss knits its damp fingers over your closing eyes.

they will find your nightgown one day; the thirsty bowl of the forest floor having drunk deep of the rest of you

this is the story which you write yourself into to calm your troubled heart.

Dear Hater:

... the only kind of "high" I'm going to get is a distinction.

Stop spreading dumb rumours. Thanks.

x

"let's go kl ! omigod over there you can go craaaazy, i tell you"
"we go foot her (food tour). omigod is dam dam awesome!"
"...abuden!"
~cue maniacal chorus of singlish giggles here~





oh my God somebody save me it is 30days to the A Level GP exam and i do not need this.

lexy keeps us pure

mia keeps us sane

izzie has some jagged edges but we like the pain!

Y'KNOW what the most retarded feeling in the world is?:

it's being bored as hell of life but not wanting to pull the trigger at all because you still have so much damn faith in the To Come; because you know it's gonna be sock-rocking worthy! I am at once infinitely happy and exquisitely miserable.

today Erik asked me what my plans were, post- A Levels.

... to be perfectly honest; for the first week or so, the plan is just to wake up everyday at 2 o' clock in the afternoon, curl up in the sheets with coffee and sweetener, and just watch old movies all day in my dressing gown. if I'm feeling particularly adventurous I might come out of my room for toast, or something.

After the initial Luxury Of Time period, however; I want to...(and this is where I realized just how GEEKY I am; because wakeboarding aside--)

1. learn how to wakeboard

2. greek mythology

3. take greek A-levels

4. read "sons and lovers" & "the great gatsby"

5. learn how to bake

6. write lots and lots of songs

7. buy cat ears and wear them while scribbling incoherent poetry all day

8. start writing letters to people

9. write to Florence and the Machine and give her permission to use my nightmare as music video inspiration

...besides #1, which makes me kinda cool; the rest are pretty much safe in the realm of Geek. Which- y'know- is kinda okay, really. Because finally I will have time to do all the lesser Geeky things that so far I have overlooked in the grand scheme of doing Nerdy things-- ie doing mindless Mathematics, throwing History-onics, getting Excessively into Economics...etc.

I'm fine with being a geek but don't ask me to fly the nerd flag-- THERE IS AN INTRINSIC DIFFERENCE.

today everybody seems to be airy and restless and a little bit on the edge. saturday static? I'm certainly feeling it. Okay, Singapore, reserve it for Monday.

i want the same white nightdress florence wears in heavy in your arms i can't wait for the shimmering shrapnel that floats in backs of tired minds like the dreamcatchers you can't catch

need to return lisa's library books homer sappho: there will be time after this for all of the old poets. you have old worlds to see and new faces to meet. you darling need to stop being defined by who you are with: you have nothing to prove to me you have nothing FOR me

i need to stop the tragic run-on prose and learn to be concise. cambridge clipped. STOP

you can't hunt down what you're searching for because they're on the run with me and if you reach into my chest to get them your hand's going to come out red with nothing but MY blood

it's okay i use the melancholy for my late night poems. don't need to be fixed

i am not

b-b-b

b-b-b-broken

i am an alabam.

excerpt from notebook, classtime, 9:07am:

such lethargy, today.

it's the middle of the week.

i hate middles of anything-- they're the roadsign on the highway waving you on with a "half the pain down, half more to go..." when you barely made it through the first half intact. the race marshall who gestures you on and up the hill with a cheery "you can do it!" when all you want to do is feign a sudden concussion, ask for water, and throw your cards down on the race.

middles signal mediocrity and mediocrity hails inadequacy,

inadequacy bubbles over into teacups.

tomorrow there will be a God. tomorrow the elixir of the promise of the weekend will give the spring in your step; the trip in your trot; the b-b-b-bounce to propel you into forward motion.

but today you are allowed to be mundane.

today we chew like Navajo, tobacco, slow; and tonight we fall asleep to coffeegrounds and stereos and the drone of the telephone. alone. phone home.

the music hurts.

[/edit]

on another note today i heard someone say to another someone "it's 3 o'clock, why don't you go and eat?"

and inexplicably my heart was filled with love for the unbearable joy of being human. for the same safe little rituals we perform the world over that make us this devastating, simple genus.

in which the blind see again

Dear People who have expressed concern in varying degrees over my degenerating eyesight:

Thank you! I have glasses now. All is well with the world.

x

so today I decided "okay, I'm going to be all artsy and poetic and Daughter Of Nature-y for five minutes" and wandered out to the rooftop garden.

and then I was so mesmerized by the dim lights and the distant skyline and general night-time-ness that I must have used a little bit too much force to close the glass door; because next thing I knew; I heard a "click".

...only I would lock myself out of my own house. And on the roof, too. Honestly, I think sometimes God guides my hand in these things just when He wants a little chuckle.

"ugh Palestine's not doing too well today...and Venice is still sinking...and Rihanna dyed her hair that unholy shade again...AHA I KNOW LET'S MAKE CARA DO SOMETHING STUPID. HEY GABE, HEY MIKE, IT'S TV TIME GET THE CRISPS~~"

All in all, though, I figured the roof wasn't a bad place to be locked out on; and decided to lie there until the family came back from town and somebody came up to the third floor to unlock me.

And so I lay there in my robin's egg blue batik nightgown, on the wooden planks, and stared up at the sky and breathed and watched the stars and the clouds and quite enjoyed this little adventure.

rolled over about once to text people, because after about ten minutes of being an artsy, poetic Daughter Of Nature; it got a little bit boring. just a little bit.

Shakti, after learning of my plight: HAHAHAHAHA now you have no choice but to entertain me MUAHAHAHAHA.

How's the Econs coming along?

Cara: Not very well, seeing as how I'm OUT ON THE ROOF. Watching cloud in shape of wolf's head pass by hurrah me

eventually i did get rescued.

also laughed at. why is the world so judgmental?! This depresses me. Now I'm going to wear heavy black eyeliner and metal studs and isolate myself in my own special hiding place to contemplate the meaning of Life. preferably not on the roof.

Moral of the story: DON'T be an artsy, poetic Daughter of Nature. Particularly if you're sitting for your A Levels. It wastes time and you get your hair dirty lying out on the wooden floor, although you end up getting bathed by the stars. Luckily it wasn't raining. whew.